“This would be so neat.”
Illinois immediate gets stuck in the MAC for 20 years.
People, this would be *so* bad for us. If our schedule was made up of only Ball State, Kent State, Buffalo, Akron, Ohio, etc. every year, do you really think we would be able to get even 20k fans to come out to the stadium? We would very, very quickly be in that Cal Berkley territory of “maybe Illinois should just drop football.” Even if we dominated that lower level and kept getting promoted back up, how is that going to help us stay up and finally compete with the big boys. We would just be constantly be yo-yoing back and forth every year. Is that really enjoyable?
We are staring down the near reality that we are in the most exclusive tier and lucrative club in college football, and people are out here thinking “wouldn’t it be cool if we would maybe get bounced down to the MAC?” NO, it wouldn’t.